Welcome to what is meant to be a quick glance at our weekly PGA DFS tour stop, the Shell Houston Open. As usual, this is where you can start your research each week with a quick look at the course layout, some history, and some statistical focus. The goal is to point you towards a solid core of players for your week. Once your core is targeted, you can start taking the necessary risks to win your big GPPs and pocket some nice cash on the bigger DFS sites.
To access deeper stats, might I recommend the tools provided by our host site, dfsarmy.com. We have a spreadsheet to organize all your relevant stats, and even a tutorial showing you how to use the sheet. Tools like these are available for nearly every sport we cover in the army. To further illustrate our tools and results, at the bottom of the page, I have displayed one of our VIPs and his GPP win of $10,000 last week. Needless to say, he was happy he joined the DFS Army.
We are only one week away from our first major of the PGA season, The Masters. While our DFS PGA players get geared up for Augusta, you might want to get geared up for the season’s first Milly Maker on DraftKings. This is the time of year that DFS contests start getting real, too.
Shell Houston Course Setup
This week, we head to the Redstone Course in Houston. The course is a long-ish par 72 checking in at around 7,500 yards. It may feature a ton of water, but by and large the fairways are pretty wide and forgiving by tour standards. Winning scores are usually pretty low, as well, with -15 (273) usually needed to hoist the trophy.
The greens are usually set up very fast to mimic and ready our tour players for Augusta. However, there is one major difference in the greens. Houston has bermuda and Augusta uses bentgrass. Bermuda greens are very “grainy” and hard to read. This usually gives an advantage to good putters that grew up on bermuda greens. If you can search that far back into player’s bios, you will have an advantage over your competitors in DFS.
This week will also feature the “MDF cut” again. This modified cut rule stipulates another cut will be made after 54 holes if the first cut was 78 players or larger. This rule brings the field back down to 70 and ties for Sunday’s final round. DFS players need to bear the MDF rule in mind.
PGA DFS Player Identifiers
History at Shell Houston Open
History is important. Some players simply play better at a particular course. Let’s see what we can pull from the last 3 years at this event. Players in green have finished in the top 20 in at least 2 of the previous 3 years.
PGA DFS Current Form
Current form shows us which players are playing well of late. This table shows the top 30 performers in the last 5 PGA Tour stroke play events. A player on both the historical and current form lists should hit your radar pretty hard.
Vegas Odds to Win
While reading around the web, I found numerous articles stating the Vegas odds and where the winners and cut-makers tend to come from. Because of this influence (and the fact I’m a balanced/cash game type player), I like taking my core from golfers with better than 100/1 odds to win outright. Honestly, I try and stay inside 50/1.
I love comparing these odds to the pricing on DraftKings to see where potential mismatches can be found. For example, if I order the players by favorite, this week I see Jordan Speith is the favorite and Patrick Reed is 11th. Now, when I look at DraftKings pricing, I see Speith is still 1st, but Reed has slipped all the way down to 21st. That gap in pricing might indicate value. Vegas is likely better at predicting a player’s finish than DraftKings. It is their profession, after all.
When it comes to DraftKings pricing, here are my 5 favorite discrepancies in favor of the DFS value hunter.
1- Patrick Reed (11th in Vegas, 21st in DK pricing)
2- Jason Dufner (17th Vegas, 58th DK)
3- Tony Finau (20th Vegas, 60th DK)
4- Bernd Wiesberger (22nd Vegas, 91st DK)
5- Ollie Schniederjans (26th Vegas, 91st DK)
Some of these players may form my core. From there, I will mix and match other players around them to take my chances. Building a solid core of value is a tried and true way to win both cash and GPP contests.
PGA DFS Key Statistics for the Shell Houston Open
Driving Distance (DD) – Although we’ve seen shorter hitters do well and even win here, length still matters. Long par 4s (several over 450 yards) and scoreable par 5s give longer hitters big advantages. Think of it this way: Would you rather hit a 7 iron or 4 iron into the green? Yeah, me too.
Greens In Regulation (GIR) – Always an important stat, GIR correlates in Houston more than usual.
Par 4 Scoring (P4SA) – With the longer par 4s on this course, players that perform well with longer irons tend to play par 4s better than their counterparts.
Par 5 Scoring (P5SA) – The winner in Houston goes well under par on the par 5s. No brainer that this is an important stat again this week.
Strokes Gained: Putting and Strokes Gained: Tee to Green are another couple of stats that just go without saying anymore and should be looked at each week.
PGA DFS Weather Report
Weather impacts golf. Wind, rain, wet courses, dry courses all affect players. So far, the weather in Houston looks to have some shots at rain, especially on Saturday night and Sunday. Make sure you check back later in the week, or follow dfsarmy.com for updates.
What Now?
Well, now that you have some marching orders for research, focus on building a core of golfers you love. If you enjoy making multiple lineups, you might take a look at our state-of-the-art optimizer, The Domination Station. We have a tutorial for the optimizer, too, that shows you how to best maximize it’s amazing potential. We have NBA VIPs steamrolling competition with 68%+ win percentages in H2Hs over growing sample sizes proving our optimizer is no fluke. See our tutorial here.
As always, you can find me inside our VIP slack forums or follow me on twitter @Choppodong. I hope to see you out in DFS Land. Now, as promised, here is the screenshot of Alvarez’ huge GPP win. It’s real, folks. The DFS Army will help get you there, too. Mega congrats to a quality Army VIP!
